Category Archives: The World

More security breaches

Just now got to looking at this morning’s Wall Street Journal, and I see they have another disturbing report about U.S. counterintelligence fecklessness.

Last week, it was Chinese and Russian spies probing our electricity grid to figure out how to shut in down in case of war.

This week, the WSJ reports that Chinese (probably) hackers have done the following:

WASHINGTON — Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project — the Defense Department’s costliest weapons program ever — according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.

Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force’s air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.

The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating up between the U.S. and potential adversaries over the data networks that tie the world together. The revelations follow a recent Wall Street Journal report that computers used to control the U.S. electrical-distribution system, as well as other infrastructure, have also been infiltrated by spies abroad…

The good news, to the extent that there was any, was that “while the spies were able to download sizable amounts of data related to the jet-fighter, they weren’t able to access the most sensitive material, which is stored on computers not connected to the Internet.”

Well, duh. So we actually took steps to defend SOME of our most sensitive national security data. Yay for our side.

But beyond that, we’re looking pretty pathetic.

The professor and the pirates

Herb was kind enough to pass on this interesting online exchange with a Davidson College professor about the Somali pirates. The Washington Post ran it on April 10. Two things — two things that have nothing to do with each other, and may even be contradictory — occurred to me while reading it:

First, this is a remarkably intelligent and well-informed exchange. I’m struck by how relatively knowledgeable the questioners are, much less the professor doing the answering. I was impressed. Everyone involved seemed to have heard more about Somalia and pirates than I had.
Second, that aside, the exchange illustrates the limitations of expertise. This was published during the Maersk Alabama drama, while the captain was held hostage in the lifeboat, and before the Seals took out the pirates and saved the captain. The expert, the professor, keeps making the point over and over that military action to save the captain would be futile, that the thing to do is just to play along and pay the ransom. This is a really stark example of the advice we get so often from experts who are just chock full of facts about a situation or a part of the world, who therefore have great credibility when they tell us that trying to DO anything would be useless. And they are so often wrong.

‘The Russ’ had a more tragic future than Paine foretold

I was struck by the ironic contrast between two things I read today. First there was this passage from Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man:

Never did so great an opportunity offer itself to England, and to all Europe, as is produced by the two Revolutions of America and France. By the former, freedom has a national champion in the western world; and by the latter, in Europe. When another nation shall join France, despotism and bad government will scarcely dare to appear. To use a trite expression, the iron is becoming hot all over Europe. The insulted German and the enslaved Spaniard, the Russ and the Pole, are beginning to think. The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world.

Perhaps “the Russ” was beginning to think. But that nation’s future was not nearly so glowing as Paine envisioned. Note this piece by George Will from the same op-ed page that contained the Harrell piece I praised earlier. It speaks of a Russia that is falling apart, and a people that is rapidly fading away:

Nicholas Eberstadt’s essay “Drunken Nation” in the current World Affairs quarterly notes that Russia is experiencing “a relentless, unremitting, and perhaps unstoppable depopulation.” Previous episodes of depopulation — 1917-23, 1933-34, 1941-46 — were the results of civil war, Stalin’s war on the “kulaks” and collectivization of agriculture, and World War II, respectively. But today’s depopulation is occurring in normal — for Russia — social and political circumstances. Normal conditions include a subreplacement fertility rate, sharply declining enrollment rates for primary school pupils, perhaps more than 7 percent of children abandoned by their parents to orphanages or government care or life as “street children.” Furthermore, “mind-numbing, stupefying binge drinking of hard spirits” — including poisonously impure home brews — “is an accepted norm in Russia and greatly increases the danger of fatal injury through falls, traffic accidents, violent confrontations, homicide, suicide, and so on.” Male life expectancy is lower under Putin than it was a half-century ago under Khrushchev.

Martin Walker of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, writing in The Wilson Quarterly (“The World’s New Numbers”), notes that Russia’s declining fertility is magnified by “a phenomenon so extreme that it has given rise to an ominous new term — hypermortality.” Because of rampant HIV/AIDS, extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and alcoholism, and the deteriorating health care system, a U.N. report says “mortality in Russia is three to five times higher for men and twice as high for women” than in other countries at a comparable stage of development. The report, Walker says, “predicts that within little more than a decade the working-age population will be shrinking by up to 1 million people annually.” Be that as it may, “Russia is suffering a demographic decline on a scale that is normally associated with the effects of a major war.”

Apparently, the arrival of the Age of Reason was not enough for Russia.

Halevi on chance to work with Israel

This morning, I read with particular interest the piece in the WSJ headlined, “Bibi and Barack Can Unite on Iran.” That’s because it was written by Yossi Klein Halevi, who made an impression on me when he was here to deliver the Solomon-Tenenbaum Lecture in Jewish Studies in 2002.

Here’s the main thing I remember about him: He said that he had always voted for the winner in Israeli elections. When he was feeling a little Likud, the conservative party won. When he was in more of a lefty mood, Labor won. Therefore, whatever Mr. Halevi is thinking, it’s going to come pretty close to expressing the Israeli mainstream at a given moment. I don’t know whether he voted Likud this time or not, but he speaks like a guy who still believes he has his thumb on his nation’s pulse when he writes:

The Israeli Jewish public that voted overwhelmingly for right-wing parties did so primarily for security reasons. The Israeli right of 2009 is a mood, not an ideology. And Mr. Netanyahu understands the expectations of his voters. During the election campaign, he spoke incessantly about stopping a nuclear Iran and the jihadist threat generally — not about settlement growth. However grudgingly, Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners will likely accept some limitation on settlement building. And the presence of the Labor Party in the coalition will ensure moderation on the settlement issue. Indeed, the small National Union party is the only right-wing party that places massive settlement building at the top of its agenda, and it will not be part of this coalition.

For all their differences over the nature of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, Mr. Netanyahu and Labor leader Ehud Barak have set those aside to focus on the most urgent issue facing the Middle East in the coming months: preventing the emergence of a nuclear Iran and the imposition of an irreversible blackmail on the region. Dealing with that threat will define this Likud-Labor coalition.

Mr. Halevi’s point is that Palestinian statehood and settlements aside, Israel and U.S. need to concentrate on the main strategic issue of the moment — preventing the emergence of a nuclear Iran. He sees the opportunity of working with Egypt and the Saudis, who don’t want Tehran to have that kind of clout, either. He also sees the chance to isolate Iran’s surrogates in the region by building up the economy and “civil society” in the West Bank, which “would present the Palestinians with a stark choice between their two territories: the beginnings of prosperity in a peaceful West Bank, or devastation in a jihadist Gaza.” Which makes sense.

Anyway, I recommend the piece.

Why didn’t I think of this?

Did you hear about the French 3M employees who took their boss hostage to try to get a better severance deal? (Apparently, they let him go last night.)

Now, why didn’t I think of that?

I’ll tell you why — I’m civilized, that’s why. Sure, I just got laid off, but I just can’t begin to identify with the kind of proletarian rage — or Gallic sense of entitlement, or whatever is being expressed here — that leads to this kind of lawlessness.

It wouldn’t even occur to me to resort to harsh words, much less violence. Not that this is violence, we’re told. Here’s an excerpt from a story during the standoff:

The stand-off, which isn’t violent, started on Tuesday when workers refused to allow plant director Luc Rousselet leave his office unless 3M sweetened severance packages being negotiated for the fired workers. Negotiations between the two sides are supposed to re-start late on Wednesday to try to find a solution.

Right. Maybe holding another person, physically, against his will isn’t technically violence, but it seems a prosecutor could make a good case for kidnapping, which in this country (to use a great Jack Nicholson line) is considered a more serious offense (I think; you lawyers correct me if I’m wrong) than simple assault. In fact, in some jurisdictions, doesn’t holding someone against his will constitute grounds for a lynching charge?

Apparently, after the workers let the boss go, negotiations on the severance were to continue. Seriously. Instead of everyone involved being hauled in and put under the jail, negotiations are to resume. What a country.

Meanwhile, workers are busting windows in Edinburgh to express their rage at a bank exec’s sweet retirement deal, so worker lawlessness is not restricted to France.

Of course, I will say that civil behavior cuts both ways. I’m parting with my newspaper amicably, and the paper is as responsible for that as I am. Robert and I received some nice tributes in the paper, and we were able to clean out our offices without armed guards standing over us. Robert tells me that another cartoonist laid off last week was told one day that he would lose his job the next, then when he came in the next morning to clean out his office, he was locked out.

As David Brent says, “Professionalism is… and that’s what I want.” Either you understand how to behave in a professional, civilized manner, or you don’t. Some companies, and some workers, don’t. Some do.

une aide de 900 millions de dollars

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One of the many, many groups that send me releases via e-mail every day — which I generally delete immediately, not because I'm not interested or the subject is unimportant, but because there's only so much time in the day — is one called The Israel Project.

Today's release from that group grabbed my attention, though, because — inexplicably — it was in French. Here's the headline and subhead:

Les États-Unis annoncent une aide de 900 millions de dollars pour la reconstruction de Gaza
L'argent aidera Gaza pour consolider l'Autorité palestinienne

… which reminds me: Night before last, I was downstairs working out for the first time this year (more about that later), when a report came on CNN about Hillary Clinton promising this aid to Gaza, with the stipulation that it had to be channeled through the Palestinian Authority.

Which of course raises the question, How on Earth do you get aid to Gaza through the Palestinian Authority when the Palestinian Authority doesn't control Gaza — where, in fact, being associated with the Palestinian Authority can get you shot by Hamas, the real power?

Wolf Blitzer didn't say, and I didn't think about it until I saw this headline. So merci for that.

And now a follow-up question occurs to me: What IS going to happen to this money, in reality?

And here's a follow-up to the follow-up: If this money isn't effectively going to go to relieve actual human suffering, or to further our interests in the region, either, aren't there a whole lot of better ways to spend this money in the world? I ask that because we have notoriously underfunded our diplomatic efforts around the world for years and years. What might this money — mere chump change by stimulus standards, but a respectable amount (I would think) if added on to the State Department budget — accomplish if we actually drew up a list of our international priorities, and funded them?

Peter Beattie on ‘Buy American’

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You'll recall that when David Wilkins got back from Ottawa he shared the fact that our friends in The Great White North were highly disturbed by the "Buy American" provisions in the House version of the stimulus — and by the protectionist insecurities that fueled it. It's good that President Obama went up there to try to still some of those concerns.

I've also shared a VERY strongly worded opinion on the subject from the U.K.

Now, I see this opinion piece by Peter Beattie, in which he asserts that "Now is not the time to pull down the shutters and get all protectionist."

You'll remember Mr. Beattie, who was here last year lecturing at USC. He's the former prime minister of Queensland, our sister state in Australia. His piece is worth reading.

Joe Biden, prophet

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Charles Krauhammer made the point most clearly, in his column for today:

The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, had predicted last October that “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.'' Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.
   Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.
   Consider the long list of brazen Russian provocations:
   (a) Pressuring Kyrgyzstan to shut down the U.S. air base in Manas, an absolutely cru-cial NATO conduit into Afghanistan.
   (b) Announcing the formation of a “rapid reaction force'' with six former Soviet re-publics, a regional Russian-led strike force meant to reassert Russian hegemony in the Muslim belt north of Afghanistan.
   (c) Planning to establish a Black Sea naval base in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia, conquered by Moscow last summer.
   (d) Declaring Russia's intention to deploy offensive Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if Poland and the Czech Republic go ahead with plans to station an American (anti-Iranian) missile defense system.

But you know what? I didn't use the Krauthammer piece on today's page. After all, you sort of expect Charles Krauthammer to say stuff like that. Folks like bud are more likely to be persuaded by Joel Brinkley, who is the kind of guy who writes stuff like this:

Even with all the anti-American sentiment everywhere these days, most people worldwide know America to be a decent, honest state. For all the justified criticism over the invasion of Iraq, the United States is now beginning to pull its troops out. For all the international anger and hatred of George Bush, the American people elected a man who is his antithesis.

Set aside the silliness of saying Obama is Bush's "antithesis" — I point you to all the evidence of "continuity we can believe in," such as here and here — and consider my point, which is that Joel Brinkley is decidedly not Charles Krauthammer. Anyway, here's some of what Mr. Brinkley said, in the column that appears on today's page, about how Obama is being tested, although he managed to say it without being snarky about Joe Biden:

    America’s competitors and adversaries are certainly not greeting President Obama with open arms. During his first month in office, many have given him the stiff arm.
    Pakistan made a deal with the Taliban to give it a huge swath of territory in the middle of the country for a new safe haven.
    North Korea is threatening war with the South.
    Many in the Arab world who had welcomed Obama are now attacking him because he did not denounce Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
    Iran launched a satellite into space, demonstrating that it has the ability to construct an inter-continental ballistic missile to match up with the nuclear weapons it is apparently trying to build.
    There’s more, but none of it can match the sheer gall behind Russia’s open challenge to Washington.

Just to give you yet another perspective that I did NOT use on today's page, here's what Philly's Trudy Rubin had to say about that deal that Pakistan cut with the Taliban:

       The deal was cut with an older insurgent leader, Sufi Mohammed. Supposedly, he will persuade tougher Taliban, such as his estranged son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, to lay down arms. Pakistani defense analyst Ikram Sehgal told me by phone from Karachi, "They are trying to isolate the hard-core terrorists from the moderate militants. I think it is a time of trial, to see if this works."
       Critics say the deal is a desperation move, made by a weak civilian government and an army that doesn't know how to fight the insurgents. "The Pakistani army has been remarkably ineffective," said Dan Markey, a South Asia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. He said the army, which is trained to fight land wars against India, lacks the counterinsurgency skills to "hit bad guys and not good guys."
       As a result, many innocent civilians are killed, leading locals to accept the Taliban as the lesser of two evils. (That may account for the warm welcome Sufi Mohammed re-ceived in Swat after the deal; poor people are desperate for the violence to stop, whatever it takes.)

So wherever you are on the political spectrum, if you follow and understand foreign affairs, you know that Obama is indeed being tested. Big-time. And it remains to be seen whether he passes the tests. I certainly hope he does.

Syria and WMD

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Just when you think you have time to worry about what Michael Phelps is smoking, there's always somebody out there coming up with something more pressing, something you hadn't even thought about lately.

Like Syria and Weapons of Mass Destruction. So you thought the Israelis had taken care of that with the strike on the nuke facility? Well, think again, according to Jane's, which sent me a release today about the following:

Syria Appears to be Developing its Chemical Weapons Capability

IHS Jane’s examines satellite imagery

London (18th February 2009) – Jane’s Intelligence Review used satellite images from commercial sources gathered between 2005 and 2008 to examine activity at the chemical weapons facility identified as Al Safir in northwest Syria. Imagery from DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-1 satellite and GeoEye’s IKONOS satellite shows that the site contains not only a number of the defining features of a chemical weapons facility, but also that significant levels of construction have taken place at the facility’s production plant and adjacent missile base. This does not suggest that Syria is arming itself for an offensive, but it could have regional security implications given Syria’s tension with its neighbour, Israel.

One of the clearest indicators that Al Safir is a military facility as opposed to a civilian industrial complex is the level of defences protecting the site. The facility is accessed only through a military checkpoint and each element within the facility has an additional security point.

Christian Le Mière, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review, explained: “Construction at the Al Safir facility appears to be the most significant chemical weapons production, storage and weaponisation site in Syria. Its presence indicates Syria’s desire to develop unconventional weapons either to act as a deterrent to conflict with Israel or as a force enhancer should any conflict ensue. The satellite imagery that IHS Jane’s has examined suggests that Damascus has sought to expand and develop Al Safir and its chemical weapons arsenal.”

LeMière concluded: “Further expansion of Al Safir is likely to antagonise Israel and highlight mutual mistrust, even as peace talks between the two neighbours progress intermittently. Although an Israeli air strike on the facility may not yet be likely, such developments only serve to underline and exacerbate regional tensions.”

###

Actually, I'd tell you more but you have to subscribe to Jane's to get more. And I've got enough to worry about… They even offered me a contact number in case I wanted to see the satellite image. But I just don't have time to spend half a day shaking off surveillance, doubling back on my tracks, to meet a guy in Lisbon with a magazine in his left hand who will say, "Do you like good curry?," to which I have to remember the right thing to say or he'll garrote me.

Even if I went to the trouble, bud still wouldn't believe me that the WMD exists…

Notice how this hasn’t helped with SC jobs

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Tomorrow's op-ed page features this Trudy Rubin column about how, in tough economic times, xenophobia and scapegoating of "the other" tends to rise. She speaks of the synagogue trashed in Caracas, similar incidents in Argentina, the Vatican's recent mess with the reinstated archbishop, etc.

And just in passing, there is a mention of a type of scapegoating we have seen in this country:

Of course, it won't just be Jews who will be scapegoated. It can be Chechens or dark-skinned people from the Caucuses in Russia, or migrant workers in Chinese cities, or illegal immigrants in the United States.

Well, yes and no, in terms of the direct correlation to the economy. We saw the rise of resentment of illegals peak BEFORE the economy's recent southward trend. And in fact, one has heard a lot less about it recently than one heard back before John McCain became the GOP nominee (except, of course, from the kind of GOP voter who said they would not vote for him, not no way, not nohow).

Of course, there are some here in SC who would attribute the quieting of the anti-illegal lobby to the terrific job they say they're doing. I just got this release today from S.C. Senate Republicans:

South Carolina’s Immigration Laws Could Be Severely Weakened

Federal Government May Not Reauthorize E-Verify Program

Columbia, SC – February 17, 2009 – South Carolina’s State Senators are taking action and asking the United States Congress to reauthorize a federal program that is presently allowing the state to crack down on illegal immigration. State Senator Larry Martin (R-Pickens) today introduced a resolution urging Congress to reauthorize the E-Verify program.
    E-Verify is an Internet based program run by the Department of Homeland Security, which allows for the instantaneous verification of an employee’s residency status.
    After an outcry from businesses, workers, and taxpayers across the state, the South Carolina General Assembly last year passed the nation’s toughest illegal immigration laws. Using the federal government’s E-Verify program, South Carolina’s new laws give the state the ability to punish those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, South Carolina’s laws could lose their teeth and be severely weakened if Congress does not reauthorize E-Verify.
    Senator Larry Martin says the affect on South Carolina’s economy could be devastating. “We now have the third highest unemployment rate in the nation due to this harsh economic environment. Our new law has stopped the influx of undocumented workers in South Carolina. We need to ensure that every available job in the state is being filled by a legal United States resident.”
    Martin continued, “E-Verify is the most cost-effective, secure, and reliable tool for businesses to verify the residency status of their employees. I can not urge Congress enough to reauthorize this vital program.”
            ###

So basically, he's saying we've got to keep out the illegals to protect our jobs. To which I say, what jobs? The period during which he's saying SC's done a great job of keeping out illegals (which remains to be seen, but let's play along) is a period in which unemployment in SC has soared.

Here's a clue, folks: You know what's more likely than anything else to keep out illegals? The continued decline of our economy, that's what. When there aren't jobs to be had, they're going to stay away. But is that what we want?

Think about it: Would you rather have high unemployment and keep the illegals out, or low unemployment but with illegals here? I'm sure the choice before us is not a pure question of either-or, but a basic understanding of supply and demand would suggest that there is a high correlation…

WashPost: CIA helps Pakistan, India work together on Mumbai case

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Today I got a release from The Washington Post touting a good-news story that for me explained a lot:

The Washington Post today reports that in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the CIA orchestrated back-channel intelligence exchanges between India and Pakistan, allowing the two former enemies to quietly share highly sensitive evidence while the Americans served as neutral arbiters.

The exchanges, which began days after the deadly assault in late November, gradually helped the two sides overcome mutual suspicions and paved the way for Islamabad's announcement last week acknowledging that some of the planning for the attack had occurred on Pakistani soil, report Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung.

The intelligence went well beyond the public revelations about the 10 Mumbai terrorists, and included sophisticated communications intercepts and an array of physical evidence detailing how the gunmen and their supporters planned and executed their three-day killing spree in the Indian port city.

Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies separately shared their findings with the CIA, which relayed the details while also vetting the intelligence and filling in blanks with gleanings from its networks, the sources said. The U.S. role was described in interviews with Pakistani officials and confirmed by U.S. sources with detailed knowledge of the arrangement. The arrangement is ongoing, and it is unknown whether it will continue after the Mumbai case is settled.

As I've read reports in recent weeks about Pakistan making arrests and acknowledging the involvement of its nationals, I've sort of wondered at the back of my mind why this case has proceeded without a lot more tension — and maybe actions that went beyond tension — between these too long-time adversaries. Think about it — we could have had a nuclear war in the region by now. Then I read this.

This is just the kind of thing you HOPE your government is secretly doing, but you fear that too often it is not…

Obama’s news conference

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Did you watch it? What did you think?

As usual, I think the new pres handled himself well. The guy's just chock full o' poise. I also think he made some good points selling portions of his stimulus plan — particularly the green energy and medical records parts.

And as usual, when I force myself to watch one of these things, I sympathized with him and what he was trying to say, and got really irritated at some the stupid, facile, superficially provocative questions the media reps asked. For instance, I know we're supposed to think Helen Thomas is cute or something because she's so old, but what the hell did she mean by "so-called terrorists" (which the president politely called her down for, by setting out quite clearly what a terrorist is). And did she really want the president to blurt out, in response to her hectoring (see how she kept asking it, talking over him?), who in the Mideast has nukes and who doesn't? What did she expect him to say, something like "Oh, you mean, besides Israel?" Does she think a new president should gab with her, in front of the country, about whatever juicy tidbits he's picked up at those cool intel briefings?

And who was it, the CNN guy? who asked, as this guy's walking in the door and beginning to turn our resources more fully toward a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, "Hey, when can we leave Afghanistan?" What kinds of questions are these? Are they randomly chosen from questions overheard on the street, or what? What sort of intelligent answer could anyone possibly expect from such a question?

And The Huffington Post? A blog? A representative of Arianna Huffington gets a question, as opposed to… I don't know… the Chicago Tribune? What do they do, drag these names out of a hat? Or is it, "let's give one to a serious newspaper, one to a network, throw in a blog, and if there's a little old lady in tennis shoes we'll give her a shot, too?"

I've never really liked the combination of journalism and theater that is the news conference… all that posturing and primping before one's peers and the folks at home, everybody trying to impress somebody, and mostly persuading everyone as to what idiots they are. The very few such events I attended as a reporter, I kept my mouth shut rather than be part of the show. If I couldn't find out what I needed to know before such a cattle call, I wasn't doing my job. Later, as an editor, I told reporters they'd BETTER have the whole story ahead of time, and preferably have it filed. They should then attend the show on the remote chance that something would come up they didn't know already. They were not to ask questions during the conference unless they couldn't get them answered any other way (which they should regard as a failure), for the simple fact that they'd better know a LOT more than the TV and radio types who live off such events, so why should they get to feed off your good questions?

It occurs to me as I reminisce that I was not the easiest editor for a reporter to work for… probably a good thing I defected to editorial in 1994, and left all that behind.

Oh, well. I think I'll read some Moby Dick and go to bed.

Caterpillar view of ‘Buy American’

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Just now got to this e-mail of a letter from two officials with Caterpillar up in Greenville about the "Buy American" provision in Nancy Pelosi's version of the stimulus. All of our pages through Monday are now done, so on the off chance that the letter might get outdated before we could run it, and since the subject has been on my mind, I'll go ahead and run their missive here:

“Buy American” provisions could kill American jobs

Caterpillar is a proud American company. We were born in California, made our home in Illinois and maintained a strong U.S. manufacturing base that serves the global marketplace. Caterpillar laid roots in the Greenville area in 1994, beginning with the Greenville Engine Center (GEC). Our operations now include the GEC, Caterpillar Logistics Services, Inc., and the Marine Center of Excellence. We are also proud of our global footprint that allows us to compete and support Cat equipment throughout the world. Today more than half of what we produce in the U.S. is exported to markets outside the United States.

We are also a company that will benefit from the infrastructure component of the proposed $825 billion U.S. stimulus package. But there is one element of the stimulus proposal that greatly concerns us — it's the “Buy American” provisions. Why would an American company be against a provision that forces the U.S. government to only buy American products? Our reasons go beyond our confidence that we can compete and win business because of the value of the products we produce.

Today, countries from Asia to Europe are pursuing similar infrastructure packages to stimulate their economies. In some cases, like China, these proposed projects are more ambitious than those in the United States.

This is our concern. Caterpillar would like to sell U.S.-made products to infrastructure projects at home and abroad. But if the U.S. sends the message that regardless of value, countries should only buy locally produced products, Caterpillar's exports, as well as the U.S. jobs they support, will be hurt. In some of our Illinois factories, as much as 70 percent of what we make is sold overseas. Over half of the engines produced in Greenville are for export use including those most recently “in-sourced” from our European factories. That’s not surprising given that 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside our borders, and most infrastructure growth is occurring in the developing world.

It's hard to be against something that sounds as patriotic as "Buying American." But turning inward and embracing protectionism is what turned a bad recession in the 1930s into the Great Depression. Let’s show some political courage and learn lessons from the past. Our country doesn’t need to isolate itself from the international economy. Rather, we need policies that will help us improve competitiveness and grow. For starters we need a "National Export Strategy” that keeps U.S.-made goods in demand globally, U.S.-based companies competitive and U.S. workers employed—including tens of thousands of Caterpillar and supplier employees. The approval of these “provisions”, as they are written, could have a devastating impact on the operations of the Greenville Engine Center, Cat Logistics and the Marine Center of Excellence, as well as the lives of our employees and their families.

John Downey
Facility Manager
Large Power Systems Division
Caterpillar Inc.

Josh Frey
Facility Manager
Caterpillar Logistics Services, Inc.
Caterpillar Inc.

‘Buy American’

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Obama has sided with Republicans and biz types in opposing congressional Democrats' "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill, much to the chagrin of the Big Labor lobby.

I thought I had made up my mind on this when I read a story in the WSJ that put Obama on one side, and Harry Reid on the other (my instinct in such a choice is to go with Obama, every time). Besides, I'm a free-trader, and one of my beefs with Obama during the election is that he wasn't.

But when I mentioned that this morning, one of my colleagues strongly disagreed. She said (helping you guess who it was) that if taxpayers were putting up the dough, of course it should stay in this country.

Me, I don't want to take the global economy back to a bunch of little protectionist islands. If the economy starts to recover anywhere, I want the growth to flow freely. But I saw my colleague's argument.

Then, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins (below) came to see us this afternoon, and he talked about how our good friends in the Great White North — our biggest trading partners, the people we get the largest amount of oil from, etc. — are absolutely freaking out about the "Buy American" thing. And with good reason, from their perspective. And they are our good friends and allies. So I value their opinion.

Looking around, I see that Paul "Nobel Prize in Economics" Krugman is no help — on his blog, he argues it both ways (although I admit, I understand his anti-protectionist argument better than his wonkish one to the contrary).

What do you think?

What if Khameini’s not in charge, either?

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Something that occurs to me whenever geopolitical boffins assure us, oh so wisely, that we're letting ourselves be distracted by a mere functionary when we listen to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, since as we all know, in reality, that Ayatollah Khameini is the guy in charge, as Roger Cohen does here…

Can revolutionary Iran live without “Death to America?” Powerful hard-line Iranian factions think not, but I’m with the majority of Iranians who believe their Islamic Republic can coexist with a functioning U.S. relationship.
Obama should do five other things: Address his opening to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, because he decides. State that America is not in the Iranian regime-change game. Act soon rather than wait for the June Iranian presidential elections; Khamenei will still be around after them. Start with small steps that build trust. Treat the nuclear issue within the whole range of U.S.-Iranian relations rather than as its distorting focus.

… is this: How do ya know that Khameini's in charge? What if the thing that "everybody who knows anything knows" is wrong? Maybe, to borrow a phrase from Frank Herbert, it's "a feint within a feint within a feint."

Maybe Ahmadinejad is really the power behind Khameini. Or, more likely, another lesser-known mullah is manipulating Khameini. Or maybe some guy we never heard of, maybe someone completely unlikely — say, some survivor of the Shah's secret police — is really pulling all the mullahs' strings…

In a system that is designed NOT to be transparent — unlike liberal democracies in the West — we should assume that there is much we don't know. Of course, that also means that before we go "negotiating with the Iranians" with all the best will in the world, we know who it is we should be talking to. Personally, I'm not convinced that anyone does know. Talk, by all means. But at the same time, keep asking (at the very least, asking yourself) the question that Chili Palmer asked in "Get Shorty:" "But first I want to know who I'm talking to. Am I talking to you, or am I talking to him?"

Or maybe I'm just being paranoid today. But when you're talking about a country whose nominal leader wants Israel not to exist, which is trying like crazy to get The Bomb, which is the power and the juice behind the Sadrists in Iraq, Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and seems to have a relationship with Sunni Syria not unlike that which Barzini had with Tataglia, a reasonable man would get a little paranoid… Maybe, when Obama and/or Hillary chat with these guys, they should bring along both a Mentat and a Bene Gesserit, just to cover all the bases…

Why is it so hard to say ‘abortion?’

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There's nothing unusual about this, but about the thousandth time this morning, in reading an editorial from the weekend in The New York Times, I marveled at how long it took to get past all the pro-choice euphemisms ("women's health," "reproductive health and freedom," "safeguard women's lives," "free speech") and get to the one operative word upon which the issue turns:

Women’s Health, Ungagged
    President Obama on Friday began dismantling his predecessor’s broad and damaging assault on women’s reproductive health and freedom. He lifted the odious gag rule that President George W. Bush imposed on international family planning groups and began trying to restore financing to the United Nations Population Fund.
    It was a reassuring message that Mr. Obama takes seriously his duty to safeguard women’s lives and basic rights, including free speech and the choice of whether to bear a child.
    The gag rule was first imposed by President Ronald Reagan. It barred any health care provider receiving American family planning assistance from counseling women on abortion, engaging in political speech on abortion or providing abortions, even with its own money…

By my count (actually, by Microsoft Word's count — what, you think I've got time to sit and count them?), it took 113 words to get to "abortion." Which actually isn't all that bad, I guess, compared to some instances I've seen. But it strikes me as about 100 words, or two paragraphs, late, by any reasonable standard of getting to the point.

But then, I'm a word guy — and specifically, an editorial guy — so I probably notice stuff like that more than most people do. Also, I disagree with the NYT on the issue, so I'm that much more likely to notice how much they feel compelled to dress up the concept, with layer upon layer of rhetorical clothing, before bringing it out.

McCain, Graham support Obama on Gitmo

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FYI, I just got this release from Lindsey Graham's office:

JOINT STATEMENT FROM U.S. SENATORS LINDSEY GRAHAM AND JOHN MCCAIN ON GUANTANAMO EXECUTIVE ORDER

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and John McCain (R-Arizona) today issued the following statement regarding the executive order put forth by President Obama calling for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo:

“We support President Obama’s decision to close the prison at Guantanamo, reaffirm America’s adherence to the Geneva Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees,” said Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain. “The executive orders issued today constitute an important step in the right direction but leave several major issues unaddressed.”
“Numerous difficult issues remain,” Senator Graham and Senator McCain continued. “Present at Guantanamo are a number of detainees who have been cleared for release but have found no foreign country willing to accept them. Other detainees have been deemed too dangerous for release, but the sensitive nature of the evidence makes prosecution difficult. The military’s proper role in processing detainees held on the battlefield at Bagram, Afghanistan, and other military prisons around the world must be defended, but that is left unresolved. Also unresolved is the type of judicial process that would replace the military commissions. We believe the military commissions should have been allowed to continue their work. We look forward to working with the President and his administration on these issues, keeping in mind that the first priority of the U.S. government is to guarantee the security of the American people.”

####

… which seems to me an appropriate stance for the loyal opposition. They support their commander in chief because they share his concerns that our nation live up to its highest ideals — which is completely consistent with their advocacy during the Bush administration. (And remember, McCain said that he, too, would have closed the Gitmo facility if elected.) At the same time, they make sure they get on the record the unresolved problems inherent in this move. Smart, principled and appropriate.

Well, at least he was civil about it…

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South Carolina's senators split — again — today on the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Guess which one voted against? (Hint: It was NOT the guy Obama's going to be looking to for foreign policy advice.) But he managed to be quite civil about it, saying:

The memorandum of understanding signed by the foundation leaves a lot of discretion to Senator Clinton. During her confirmation hearing, Sen. Lugar presented a request for more acceptable disclosures, and Sen. Kerry, as chairman, supported these recommendations. Unfortunately, Sen. Clinton has not agreed to follow even these modest recommendations.
For these reasons, I will be voting against the nomination, but I will do so with nothing but sincere hope and goodwill toward our new Secretary of State, and pray for her success as she takes the helm of the State Department.

Meanwhile Lindsey Graham put out this statement:

Graham Supports Clinton for Secretary of State
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement after Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State. The vote in the Senate was 94-2.
    “Hillary Clinton will serve our nation well as Secretary of State. She understands the enormous domestic and international challenges facing our nation. In choosing Hillary Clinton, President Obama has selected a person of great substance, skill, and intellect.
     “President Obama won the election and has earned the right to put his team in place. The presidential campaign is over but the wars our nation is engaged in are not. Our young men and women around the world in harms way need an advocate on the world stage.”
            ####

Of course, he and Hillary have always gotten along pretty cordially.

How would I have voted? Well, as you know, I didn't think this was the best call Obama has made. Some other job, yes, but I don't think secretary of state is the best place to put your chief rival. The SecState should be understood as completely subordinate to the president, and that seems a tough role for her.

But in the end, Graham says it well: This is the president's call. If this is who he wants, barring some really compelling reason to reject her, I say get her in place as soon as possible. Yeah, I think the Clinton foundation thing is a problem. But then Bill is always a problem for Hillary. No matter how much disclosure, there would be a problem. Not enough to vote "no" for me, though.

Today’s Gaza editorial, with other views

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Keeping with my rule about making the most of anything I write, here's a blog version of the Gaza editorial I wrote for today's paper:

Ending the killing
is natural goal for
both U.S., Israel

THE DEATH OF INNOCENT women and children among the 40 Palestinians who were killed by Israeli mortar fire outside a United Nations school on Tuesday is a tragedy that should appall decent people everywhere, as it has done.

Apart from the personal devastation that spreads from the loss of any human life, each death of a Palestinian noncombatant strengthens the terrorists of Hamas and their sponsors in Iran, and damages Israeli security by undermining what few vestiges of concern remain in foreign capitals for Israel and its legitimate interests. It’s a lose-lose-lose proposition for anyone who hopes for a day when Israelis and Palestinians coexist in peace.

But what were the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at? Well, they were shooting back at the Hamas fighters who were firing mortars at IDF troops from the school compound. Why were the Hamas fighters shooting at the Israelis? Because the Israelis had entered the Gaza strip to attack Hamas. Why? Because Hamas was firing as many as 60 rockets a day into Israel with the intent of killing as many innocent Israeli civilians as possible. Why? Because Hamas and its Iranian sponsors are dedicated to the idea that Israel should cease to exist. Anything that furthers that goal, from killing Israelis to baiting Israel into killing innocent Palestinians whom Hamas fighters use as shields, is what Hamas will do.

The best thing for Hamas, with its nihilist aims, is for the killing to continue. The best thing for Israel, and for its chief ally the United States, is for it to end as quickly as possible. At the same time, the deaths that have occurred on either side in recent days truly would have happened for naught if Israel does not achieve the realistic military goal of reducing Hamas’ ability to fire rockets from northern Gaza into Israel.

Does this mean that foreign governments are wrong to press Israel for a cease-fire — that is, for a cease-fire that lasts longer than the three-hour one on Thursday? No, for the simple fact that Israel is the only combatant in this conflict that is susceptible to international pressure. It’s the only party that can be expected to respond rationally — “rationally” in a conventional modern, civilized sense — to diplomatic pressure.

That’s why the United States must and will work not only for an end to this battle, but for an end to the overall Arab-Israeli conflict, which has morphed into a conflict between Israel and Iranian surrogates. But not even a short-term resolution to the battle for Gaza seems likely to come on the Bush administration’s watch.

Speaking of that, the simple explanation for Israel’s incursion into Gaza is that it is doing so while it still has a staunch friend in the White House. As with most simple explanations, there is truth in that. At the same time, anyone who thinks the United States will no longer align itself with Israel’s long-term interests just because the president’s name is Barack Hussein Obama is as deluded as someone who assumes that this country will be vehemently anti-Palestinian because Rahm Emanuel’s father belonged to a Zionist insurgent group that fought (sometimes using terrorist tactics, for those of you with an inexhaustible appetite for moral ambiguity) to establish the modern state of Israel.

Peace and security for Israel will continue to be a top priority for the United States under President Obama. And nothing will further that cause better — or frustrate Hamas and Iran more — than working through every diplomatic means to end quickly the killing of innocents on both sides.

Beyond that, as you know, we have no op-ed pages on Fridays these days. I've tried to compensate for that somewhat by choosing a syndicated op-ed piece to run in what would normally be the staff-written-column slot at the bottom of the page (unless we have a staff column that just has to run that day).

The two best such columns available to me yesterday were both about Gaza — this one from Nicholas Kristof, and this one from Charles Krauthammer. The argument in favor of the Kristof column is that it was leaned a little less pro-Israel than our editorial thereby providing some sort of "balance" to the editorial (not the sort of "balance" that frankly pro-Palestinian folks such as our own Michael Berg might offer, but more the kind you get from the mainstream of liberal thought).

The argument in favor of the Krauthammer piece (which was pro-Israel and then some), was that it was fresh and new. The Kristof piece had run in The New York Times that morning. The Krauthammer one was embargoed until Friday, and therefore would appear in The Washington Post at the same time it appeared in The State, and would appear nowhere else before that.

I have a prejudice toward fresh, especially when it's for a special spot such as this one, even more than for a run-of-the-mill op-ed appearance. (Add to that the fact that I'm still figuring out this business of putting syndicated pieces in a place normally reserved for staff opinion. The op-ed page is clearly a place for alternative opinion, especially that which differs with the editorial board's view — as is the Letters to the Editor portion of the editorial page, by long tradition, as is the cartoon space; Robert Ariail is NOT a board member. But when the column is running in a space normally reserved for board member's personal views, is it more logical and consistent to have a differing, "balancing" view — especially since there's no op-ed that day — or one that is closer to the board position? As I say, I haven't decided that. But in this case, the freshness argument was enough for me.)

But rather than deprive you of the Kristof piece, I put it online, and put a box in the paper letting you know it was there. My little way of having it both ways. Yours, too.

Some actual GOOD news about the U.S. auto industry

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I'm not up to posting a lot of commentary on it, but I didn't want to let the day pass without noting this positive development, from an Energy Party point of view:

Fourteen U.S. technology companies are joining forces and seeking $1
billion in federal aid to build a plant to make advanced batteries for
electric cars, in a bid to catch up to Asian rivals that are far ahead
of the U.S.

The effort, the latest pitch from corporate America to inject
federal dollars into a project, is similar to an alliance that two
decades ago helped the U.S. computer-chip industry restore its
competitiveness. Participants include 3M Corp. and Johnson Controls Inc.

Many experts believe battery technology and manufacturing capacity
could become as strategically important as oil is today. Auto makers,
including General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor
Co., say they plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010. But the
U.S. has limited capacity to make the lithium-ion batteries those cars
will need. Asian producers such as Panasonic Corp. dominate the car-battery field.

About time we got off our duffs on this. That could be a decent thing to spend federal dollars on, rather than more of the same…

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